I Think It's a Moral Imperative to Have American Technologies

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i think it's startling how over the past couple of decades, there's just kind of been this narrative that we shouldn't question the kind of global domination of american technologies. And i feel like now we're entering this period where that is becoming an open question. There are legitimate conversations going on, not just in silican valley, but in policy circles, about how it is somehow a moral imperative to have American technology running other nations. It may mean something much more injurious or disastrous for the nation that's on the losing side of that. The future is always distributed unevenly. We can see it ight now with our diverse population in the united states, how technologies that are

Paris Marx is joined by Mar Hicks to discuss why we need to know the history of tech and how the British history of sexism and colonialism in computing has lessons for the present-day US tech industry.

Mar Hicks is the co-editor of “Your Computer Is on Fire,” along with Thomas S. Mullaney, Benjamin Peters, and Kavita Philip. They are also the author of “Programmed Inequality: How Britain Discarded Women Technologists and Lost Its Edge in Computing” and an Associate Professor of the History of Technology at Illinois Tech. Follow Mar on Twitter as @histoftech.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.

Also mentioned in this episode:

Mar wrote about the story of COBOL computer systems in the early months of the pandemic and how Britain killed its tech industry.
Google fired top AI ethicists Timnit Gebru and Margaret Mitchell after their research was critical of the company’s practices. Diversity recruiter April Christina Curley was also fired in September 2020.

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